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“Austrian” and “German” Philosophy in the 19Th Century

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“Austrian” and “German” Philosophy in the 19Th Century Christian Damböck (Dis-)Similarities: Remarks on “Austrian” and “German” Philosophy in the 19th Century In this paper, I re-examine Barry Smith’s 1994 list of features of Austrian Philosophy. I claim that the list properly applies only in a somewhat abbreviated form to all significant representatives of Austrian Philosophy. Moreover, Smith’s crucial thesis that the features of Austrian Philosophy are not shared by any German philosopher only holds if we compare Austrian Philosophy to a canonical list of Ger- man Philosophy II. This list, however, was established in 20th century as a result of historical misrep- resentations. If we correct these misrepresentations, we obtain another list of hidden representatives called German Philosophy I. German Philosophy I is fundamentally identical to Austrian Philosophy, whereas German Philosophy II is entirely different from both Austrian Philosophy and German Phi- losophy I. Therefore, a slightly modified version of Smith’s Austrian Philosophy account still makes sense as a tool to position the pro-scientific and rational currents of Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I against the tendentially anti-scientific and irrational current of German Philosophy II. Although Austria and Germany1 were independent nations in the 19th century, there are many aspects that overlap between the countries. Austria and Germany share the same language, and the borders between Austria and Germany were always more or less open for academics to move from one country to the other.2 Religious differences do exist, but they do not coincide with national borders. Whereas Austria is mainly Catholic and Germany is mainly Protestant, important parts of (southwestern) Germany are mainly Catholic as well. People in Catholic parts of Germany often speak an idiom that is closer to the Austrian dialect than to the idioms in Berlin or Hamburg. Ad- ditionally, many famous Austrians were native Germans and vice versa. Some Austrian philoso- phers (viz. Bolzano, Mach, Meinong) were indeed “real” native, catholic Austrians who probably 1 This paper benefitted greatly from various discussions with Hans-Joachim Dahms, Christoph Limbeck-Li- lienau, Michael Schorner, Friedrich Stadler, Thomas Uebel, and Bastian Stoppelkamp, as well as critical remarks by Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith after my talk at the Brentano Centenary Conference in Vienna and specific comments on a previous version of this paper by Bastian Stoppelkamp. First ideas on the points developed in this paper are formulated in (Damböck 2017, pp. 39-42). 2 See (Dahms and Stadler 2015), where the situation in Vienna is described. German philosophers and psy- chologists who moved to Vienna included Brentano, Jodl, Schlick, Bühler, and Carnap. 1 also spoke an Austrian idiom; others deviated from that scheme in that their religious affiliation was either Protestant (Schlick, Carnap) or Jewish (Neurath, Popper, Wittgenstein) and their native country was Germany (Brentano, Schlick, Carnap). To more closely examine the topic, let us now pick a list of names that consists of philoso- phers who are both reasonably called Austrians and who are important enough to be chosen as paradigmatic examples. To be reasonably called Austrian, we may require that a person spent im- portant parts of her or his intellectual career in Austria. We include Brentano, Schlick, and Carnap here, because they were not native Austrians but spent important parts of their career in Austria. We do not include Husserl though, because his intellectual career almost exclusively took place in Germany.3 We also do not include a philosopher like Tarski here, because he was a member of the Lvov-Warsaw School, which certainly was in part an Austrian undertaking (Lvov belonged to the Habsburg Empire) but this connection is extremely weak because: (1) Warsaw never was Austrian; and (2) even Lvov was no longer Austrian during the time when the Lvov-Warsaw School flour- ished. Furthermore, to be important enough to be chosen as a paradigmatic example, one should be a key figure for subsequent developments in the history of philosophy and should be important mainly as a philosopher. For that reason, we do not include philosophers like Zimmermann, Riehl, Ehrenfels, Kraus, Mally, Zilsel, Frank, Kaufmann, Waismann, Gustav Bergmann, and Kraft be- cause they were not that influential and we do not include people like Freud, Musil, Menger, and Gödel because their main influence lies in fields outside of philosophy. Finally, we restrict our- selves to a period between the beginning of the 19th century and the dawn of the First Republic. Our list of Austrian Philosophers is as follows: Bolzano, Mach, Brentano, Meinong, Twardowski, Neurath, Schlick, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Popper. The list might be divided into 3 Cf. (Damböck 2017, pp. 16-22) and (Mayer 2009, pp. 17-36). Husserl was born in Moravia in 1859, then a part of the Habsburg empire. He studied in Leipzig and Berlin and attended lectures by Franz Brentano during his stay as a one-year volunteer at the Austrian military in Vienna in 1886. He became privatdozent in Halle in 1887 and spent the rest of his intellectual carrier in Germany (Halle, Göttingen, and Freiburg). Given our geographical criterion, there is no sufficient basis to call him an Austrian Philosopher. Additionally, although Husserl was a student of Brentano, he hardly ever shared the latter’s scientific attitude. Rather, he tried to develop phenomenology as a method that is disconnected from science in general and psychology in particular, to provide science a basis that was otherwise miss- ing. In our framework, Husserl, rather than an Austrian Philosopher, is one of the key representatives of what we call German Philosophy II. 2 four relatively independent groups: 1) Bolzano and 2) Mach, as somewhat unique figures; plus 3) the Brentano and Meinong School; and 4) the Vienna Circle with the inclusion of its periphery.4 Bolzano, in turn, might be considered a figure somewhat close to the Brentano and Meinong School, Mach as a forerunner of the Vienna Circle of some kind. As a result, we obtain two main camps in Austrian Philosophy: the Bolzano-Brentano-Meinong camp and the Mach-Vienna Circle- Vienna Circle periphery camp. Based on the above list, we now may ask whether there are any criteria that are shared by all members on the list. Barry Smith developed a now-classic approach to our topic, which includes the following criteria:5 Smith’s features – entire list: “Austrian philosophy, it is held, is marked by: i. The attempt to do philosophy in a way that is inspired by or is closely connected to empirical science (includ- ing psychology): this attempt is associated also with a concern for the unity of science. In the work of some of the Vienna positivists it is manifested in the extreme form of a physicalistic or phenomenalistic reductionism. In the work of Brentano and his followers it relates rather to a unity of method as between philosophy and other disciplines. ii. A sympathy towards and in many cases a rootedness in British empiricist philosophy, a concern to develop a philosophy ‘from below’, on the basis of the detailed examination of particular examples. iii. A concern with the language of philosophy. This sometimes amounts to a conception of the critique of language as a tool or method; sometimes it leads to attempts at the construction of a logical ideal of language. In many cases it manifests itself in the deliberate employment of a clear and concise language for the purposes of philosophical expression and in a sensitivity to the special properties of those uses and abuses of language which are characteristic of certain sorts of philosophy. iv. A rejection of the Kantian revolution and of the various sorts of relativism and historicism which came in its wake. Instead we find different forms of realism and of ‘objectivism’ (in logic, value theory, and elsewhere – illustrated by Bolzano’s concept of the proposition in itself and in Popper’s doctrine of the ‘third world’). 4 See (Stadler 1997, pp. 660-920). The “core” of the Vienna Circle comprises 19 philosophers, among them Gustav Bergmann, Carnap, Feigl, Frank, Gödel, Hahn, Kaufmann, Kraft, Neurath, Schlick, Waismann, and Zilsel. The “periphery” comprises 18 philosophers, among them Ayer, Bühler, Hempel, Kelsen, Morris, Popper, Quine, Ramsey, Reichenbach, Tarski, and Wittgenstein. 5 See (Smith 1994, pp. 2-5). Smith’s list of names (p. 2) contains every name from our proposal and additionally Ehrenfels, Husserl, Mally, Waismann, Gustav Bergmann, and Gödel. 3 v. A special relation to the a priori, conceived not however in Kantian terms but in terms of a willingness to accept disciplines such as phenomenology and Gestalt theory which are, as Wittgenstein expressed it, ‘midway be- tween logic and physics’. (The question as to how such apriorism can be consistent with a respect for empirical science will be one of the issues addressed below.) vi. A concern with ontological structure, and more especially with the issue as to how the parts of things fit together to form structured wholes. In some cases this involves the recognition of differences of ontological level among the entities revealed to us by the various sciences and consequent readiness to accept a certain stratification of reality. vii. An over-riding interest in the relation of macro-phenomena (for example in social science or ethics) to the mental experiences or other micro-phenomena which underlie or are associated with them. This need not imply any reduction of complex wholes to their constituent parts or moments. Certainly a reductionism of this sort is present in Mach and in some of the Vienna positivists, but it is explicitly rejected by all the other thinkers mentioned.” (Smith 1994, pp. 2-3) Smith also grants that “it is far from being the case that all the given features are shared in common by all the thinkers mentioned” (p.
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